


The Abyss (Gazes Into You)

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nogitsune, Nogitsune Stiles, Possession, Spoilers for Episode: s03e21 The Fox and the Wolf, Tragedy, Werewolves, all the standard teen wolf stuff, ambiguous death, as in you can read the character as either dead or alive at the end, spoilers for 3x21, the fox and the wolf spoilers, to avoid spoilers I obviously won't say who, to be read as immediately following 'the fox and the wolf'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1270951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“‘He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,’” Stiles - the Nogitsune - says. Scott shakes his head and crouches beside the Sheriff. Stiles sits up stiffly, and he cocks his head at Derek, as though he is a curious animal regarding a funny human. “‘And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.’”</p><p>“Nietzsche,” Derek says softly, when it becomes clear that the thing is waiting for an answer. It smiles. Derek struggles not to think of it as Stiles.</p><p>“That’s right,” it says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Abyss (Gazes Into You)

_“I talked to Deaton,”_ the Scott in Derek’s memory repeats. Derek tries to ignore the voice, but it keeps talking. _“He said the Shugendo scroll says that you can get rid of the Nogitsune by changing the host’s body,”_ the memory of Scott whispers, and it is almost like deja vu. _“We can save him if we change him.”_

Derek jerks his head back and forth, shaking the memory away and coming back into the present. Stiles stands in front of him, slightly to his left. He’s flickering, faltering, and Derek can see it; Stiles’ expression keeps shifting as he fights to hold onto himself, and the Nogitsune fights back.

“Shoot me,” Stiles whispers, and then he laughs. “Shoot me,” he shouts in Chris Argent’s face. Chris pushes the slide back, and Derek thinks he could have been able to hear the bullet click into place even without his werewolf hearing, because the loft is silent following Stiles’ exclamation. The Sheriff has his own gun out in seconds, and he aims it directly between Chris’ eyes.

“Do it!” Stiles shouts, and his voice vibrates between his own voice and the Nogitsune’s. It scratches at the back of Derek’s brain, and he fights back the animalistic urge to whine. Scott’s words bounce around his head, and he lets his claws slide out of his fingertips. His hands tremble, and his face shifts; he can feel it, and it feels good. Safer, somehow.

“Don’t shoot my son!” the Sheriff bellows. Chris does not waver. His hands remain steady on his weapon.

“He’s not your son,” Chris says calmly. “He’s a fox.”

“He’s my son,” the Sheriff argues, “and you’re not going to kill him.”

Allison has her hand on her hip, where Derek assumes there is some sort of weapon hidden. Her eyes dart between Chris and the Sheriff, drifting sharply only every now and then to Stiles. Derek struggles, for a brief moment, to think of the body in front of him as the Nogitsune, but it wears Stiles’ face. In his logical mind, he knows it is not Stiles, not completely, not really. But. Still.

The door to Derek’s loft slides open with a loud _bang_ , and Derek’s eyes snap up. Stiles looks over at the doorway lazily, and he waves when Scott and Kira rush in. Kira draws a katana out of an elegant scabbard, and holds it aloft with a skill beyond her years. Stiles clicks his tongue condescendingly.

“Scott,” Stiles says, his voice low. Derek wants to rip it out of Stiles’ throat; it sounds wrong. “You shouldn’t’ve come. And you brought Kira? The poor thing.”

“Stiles, I know you’re in there,” Scott says, ignoring what Stiles just said. He steps closer, cautiously, slowly, and Kira follows at his flank, katana still held high and tightly. Derek takes another step closer to Stiles, and Stiles seems not to notice him.

Derek knows why they are all here, in his loft. Well, at least, he thinks he knows why. This Nogitsune, it uses everything important to Stiles against him. It warps everything. The Sheriff had said something along the same lines earlier; the Nogitsune was using Stiles’ mother’s disease against him, to make him give up hope. Now, it has brought Stiles here. It brought the fight here, to Derek’s loft, a previously safe place - well, for Stiles, at least. Stiles often found comfort on the sofa, at the table, in the bed. He loved the windows, and the sunlight they let in, and the stars he could see through them at night. He loved the security of the place. He loved the hominess, and Derek knew - though he tried not to think about it - that this was becoming a second home to Stiles. He loved the domesticity of the whole thing. Stiles loved the loft.

And, now, the Nogitsune was using that against him. It was souring this place, his second home, after already having tainted his real home. Derek’s mind flashes back to the chess game set up, and his stomach lurches for a moment. He tries not to think of the toppled pawn labeled _Isaac_ , or of the threatened king labeled _Derek_. He focuses instead on Stiles’ back as he shoves his hands in his pockets and regards Scott carefully. The barrel is still aimed directly at Stiles’ forehead.

In a split second, Derek considers his options.

He can let the Nogitsune get what it wants, and let Chris shoot Stiles. With the way Chris is aiming the gun right now, it would probably kill him. So, that is not an option. He can let the Nogitsune escape, which will save Stiles for the time being, but will probably kill others, and, big picture, cause more harm than good. So, that option is out, as well. He can let Kira move in and attack, but he can feel the supernatural, powerful vibes coming off of the katana held in her crackling hands, and he can feel the electricity in the air, and he is relatively certain Stiles would not survive that ordeal, either. So, that option has to come out, too.

Derek only sees one real option, at this point, that saves not only Stiles, but also everyone else in the room. Allison’s fingers twitch at her hip, and Derek moves. Stiles - the Nogitsune - both of them, they anticipate his move, and twist around as Derek lunges. Derek feels and hears the squelch of his claws in flesh and meat, and Stiles smiles. It disgusts him. He leans in and takes a harsh bite of Stiles’ shoulder, and thinks back on Scott’s words a second time.

 _“We can save him if we change him,”_ Scott had said then, but, now, Scott’s expression is twisted into one of pure horror, and he is screaming at Derek, roaring at him to let Stiles go, and Stiles has gone limp beneath Derek’s hands, underneath his sharp teeth. Derek’s teeth become square again, his claws retract, and Stiles slumps to the ground, sprawling on his back. His eyes are wide open, unseeing, and he begins to seize. Forgetting Chris Argent - and everything else, really, save for his son - the Sheriff tosses his weapon aside and falls to his knees, pulling his son’s head into his lap and keeping it still.

“Is the Nogitsune still in him?” Allison asks loudly in Kira’s direction. Kira sets the katana down gingerly, as though it may shatter, and hurries over to Stiles. She bends her head over his and grasps his wrists tightly, even as he shakes violently apart before her.

“It’s still there,” Kira says, “but it’s fighting to get out. Foxes and wolves don’t mix,” she says, and she looks at Derek. “I hope you know what you were doing.”

“I didn’t,” Derek says, and it is the truest thing he has ever said. He falls to his knees, and his hands stay uselessly in his lap. Stiles thrashes once, twice more, and becomes still, and it is eerie. The bite mark at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder is oozing blood slowly, and Derek’s eyes stay on it, waiting for the moment when it begins to seal back up, when the healing abilities start to kick in and save him.

The wounds continue to ooze. Derek does not blink, and Stiles’ mouth falls open.

“What have you done?” a voice says, and it is both like Stiles and not like Stiles. Derek reaches out, but jerks back when Stiles’ blank eyes find him. Those eyes fill up suddenly with black, until no white and no brown are visible. “‘He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,’” Stiles - the Nogitsune - says. Scott shakes his head and crouches beside the Sheriff. Stiles sits up stiffly, and he cocks his head at Derek, as though he is a curious animal regarding a funny human. “‘And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.’”

“Nietzsche,” Derek says softly, when it becomes clear that the thing is waiting for an answer. It smiles. Derek struggles not to think of it as Stiles.

“That’s right,” it says. It pauses, and the color has all drained from Stiles’ skin, leaving him unnaturally white and chalky. His moles stand out, and his eyes are horrible pits against the white of his skin. “Stiles did not look to it. He gazed long into an abyss.” It pauses again. “Your abyss. And I’m what gazed back.”

Stiles’ head snaps back, and smoke, black as his eyes, pours out of his mouth and into the floorboards. The ordeal takes forty-seven seconds, and, when it is finished, Stiles collapses against the floor again. Derek moves first, and he grabs at Stiles, drawing him up as though he were a child, clutching him to his chest. Stiles moves like a rag doll, limp against him, and Derek buries his face in his neck. He suppresses the urge to toss his head back and howl, and he remains silent. Blood continues to ooze from the wound, but it is sluggish and no longer has a purpose.

“Stiles,” Scott says, and it is a whimper. It is weak, and it is afraid. Derek moans into Stiles’ neck, the sound muffled by his white skin. There are hands on him, suddenly, pushing him too harshly away, and they belong to Chris Argent, he realizes belatedly. Chris Argent shoves him up and onto his feet, and the Sheriff pulls his son into his lap, and he bows his head over his son’s, and he begins to weep. Scott falls back, lands on his ass, and can only stare at Stiles. What is left of Stiles. Kira stares in open-mouthed shock, still kneeling beside the Sheriff, and Chris is holding Derek back, pinning his arms behind him. Allison falls down beside Scott, and wraps an arm around him. Scott still only just stares, but his eyes move several moments later, and they move to Derek.

“You killed him,” Scott says, softly. The Sheriff cannot hear him, and Stiles cannot hear him, but everybody else seems to. Derek shakes his head, and Chris helps him, guides him to the floor when he can no longer stand. “Derek-”

“You said we could change him,” Derek reminds him, and his voice sounds distant, even to him. As though he was listening to himself whisper at the other end of a tunnel. “You said that would save him.”

“I didn’t know,” Scott says, and his eyes fall to Stiles’ hands. The sounds the Sheriff is making are familiar to Derek; he made them once, as well. He knows what it is like to lose your entire family. “I didn’t know. We didn’t know, Derek, we didn’t know, _we didn’t know, we didn’t know-_ ”

“Scott, stop, stop,” Allison murmurs, and Scott screams, and his eyes turn ruby red, and the color matches the blood smeared on Derek’s hands and face. Scott leans forward, grabbing at Stiles, his forehead pressed into Stiles’ chest, and he screams again. He begs; for Stiles not to leave him, for a way to save him, for someone to please, God, help them, please. No answer comes to him.

Kira, though still shell-shocked, is the first to notice Stiles’ eyes losing their unnatural blackness. She points vaguely for a moment before she remembers herself enough to find words.

“His eyes,” she says, and continues to point. Derek fights against Chris’ hold, _really_ fights, and Chris has no choice but to release him. Derek pushes Scott out of the way, and shoves at the Sheriff until he can pry Stiles away from them. They both protest, and loudly, their faces red and damp and their expressions hysterical, but Chris Argent seems to realize what Derek has realized, and he and Allison are holding them back.

“Bite him again,” Kira instructs, and her eyes are a brilliant electric blue that is not her own, and Derek does as she instructs, biting down on his other shoulder. Stiles takes a great, heaving breath, and his heartbeats starts up again under Derek’s fingertips. His skin is still ghastly white, and stained, and Derek bites him again, at the underside of his jaw, and again, at his upper arm. He grips Stiles’ wrists, and he leaches his pain out of him, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out when the pain surges into his bloodstream like hellfire.

Stiles groans, and it is almost an inhuman sound, but it is not. Derek releases Stiles’ flesh, and then remembers himself in time to catch him before he hits the ground. Stiles’ head lolls backwards, and Derek supports his head and neck as though Stiles were a newborn. The Sheriff stares in blank shock, and Scott twitches forward, only to have Allison jerk him back.

“Is it gone?” Stiles asks, his eyes shut tight, his voice small and raw in his throat. Derek nods, then realizes Stiles cannot see him.

“I think so,” Derek answers, and Stiles begins to laugh. He laughs until he coughs, and he coughs until he cannot breathe, and then he covers his mouth with a hand that he has to drag up to his face using what is likely close to the last of his energy.

“What am I?” Stiles asks, and Derek has no answer. Stiles smells - _other_. He is something else. Then again, Derek thinks, for a moment, considering, Stiles has always been something else.

“I don’t know,” Derek answers truthfully, and Stiles forces his head up, and opens his eyes as much as he can, and he squints at Derek. “I don’t know.”

“Where’s my dad?” Stiles asks, and Derek releases him when the Sheriff takes him. Scott moves into Stiles’ line of view, and he embraces him, and the Sheriff does not release him as he does, and they look like a family. Kira stares. Allison stares. Chris stares.

Stiles turns his head, and catches Derek’s eyes. He smiled, a grotesque upturn of his lips, and he winks.

“Do you know what else Nietzsche said?” Stiles asks, and, without waiting for a response, continues, “‘In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man’s torments.’” Stiles pauses, and the smile returns. It is inhuman and _wrong_. “He’s got a point.”

Derek stares.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing about a scene I saw happening after the last episode. I definitely don't want this to happen, because Stiles is precious and to be protected at all costs, but it was worth writing.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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